2017 Spanish Grand Prix - Catalunya, 12-14 May

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Link -> Pirelli lowers tyre pressures as load fears prove unfounded

Pirelli has lowered the minimum tyre pressures for the Spanish Grand Prix after concerns about higher downforce loadings proved to be unfounded.

In pre-season testing, Pirelli ran with the rear tyres at 18psi, but that was raised to 20psi for the start of the Spanish GP weekend on the basis that car development over the past two months had substantially increased downforce loadings, based on estimates provided by the teams.

However, having studied the data collected on Friday, Pirelli has decided that it can now safely lower the minimum level to 18.5psi. The fronts have dropped from 22.5 to 22.0psi.

We can see faster times in FP3, than the normal evolution with yesterday's pressures. Most likely we can times dipping under 1m19 as a result in FP3.

[Xwang]

It will be interesting to see if some cars gain more performance than others (meaning that they suffer the higher pressure or that the others cannot extract more performance from the lower pressure)

[Restomaniac]

Why was Hamilton Moshing in his cockpit

[Chene_Mostert]

Why was Hamilton Moshing in his cockpit

maybe he converted from hip-hopper to hard-rocker

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Why was Hamilton Moshing in his cockpit

His earphones slipped out and he was pushing it back in, by knocking his head around the headrest. As heard on Sky.

[Restomaniac]

Why was Hamilton Moshing in his cockpit

His earphones slipped out and he was pushing it back in, by knocking his head around the headrest. As heard on Sky.

David Croft was guessing it was that and Anthony Davidson said as a driver that he didn't need to do that as he could reach up and put it back in and so he had no idea why.

[iotar__]

"Bottas will have car problems"
Told you.

[Restomaniac]

Well at least the Mercedes gap vanished thankfully.

[Sonador]

Raikkonen looking as good as last year, hoping for a nice fight for pole. [-o<

[ChrisDanger]

[Vasconia]

Raikkonen looking as good as last year, hoping for a nice fight for pole. [-o<

I expect Kimi to beat Sebastian this time. As usually Vettel is not so good in Barcelona.

Thankfully Ferrari seems to be only one tenth behind according to what drivers say. I hope we will see a good battle today buy the Scuderia needed to improve their race pace. Hopefully they have done it.

[atanatizante]

DRS zone exteded with 100m on the start-finish line ... would it be enough?

[henry]

Fp2 what appears to be start of race sims
Vet

........

Thanks for those numbers

Looking at the average pace and degradation, assuming the deg to be fairly linear, the Mercedes duo have a half to 1 second a lap advantage over the Ferraris. Extrapolating to 30 laps RAI would be 20 seconds behind HAM and VET 30 seconds.

On the other hand there would only be 4 seconds between the Mercedes duo, in HAM's favour. So as we might have expected qualifying will be very significant.

[ferkan]

Fp2 what appears to be start of race sims
Vet

........

Thanks for those numbers

Looking at the average pace and degradation, assuming the deg to be fairly linear, the Mercedes duo have a half to 1 second a lap advantage over the Ferraris. Extrapolating to 30 laps RAI would be 20 seconds behind HAM and VET 30 seconds.

On the other hand there would only be 4 seconds between the Mercedes duo, in HAM's favour. So as we might have expected qualifying will be very significant.

Yea...thats not going to be the case.

[f1316]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/pire ... an-905044/

The problem is that the hard will be no good in Japan either.

What they need to do is push everything down one grade (current medium becomes hard, soft becomes medium etc.) and then create a tyre that is actually *ultra* soft, in order to get some kind of strategy variation in Russia and Monaco (which are the only places they would be used).

I have spoken!